"Thank you for the small mercy, at all events," said Elgar, with a laugh. "What do you intend to do?" Mallard proceeded to ask, changing his position. "I can make no plans yet. I have pretended to only too often. You have no objection to my remaining here?" "You must take your own course--with the understanding to which we have come." "I wish I could make you look more cheerful, Mallard. I owe it to you, for you have given me more gladness than I can utter." "You can do it." "How?" "See her to-morrow morning, and then go back to England, and make yourself some kind of reputable existence." "Not yet. That is asking too much. Not so soon." "As you please. We understand each other on the main point." "Yes. Are you going back to Amalfi?" "I don't know." They talked for a few minutes more, in short sentences of this kind, but did not advance beyond the stage of mutual forbearance. Mallard lingered, as though not sure that he had fulfilled his mission. In the end he went away abruptly. CHAPTER XII ON THE HEIGHTS In vain, at each meal, did Clifford Marsh await Cecily's appearance. A trifling indisposition kept her to her room, was Mrs. Lessingham's reply to sympathetic inquiries. Mr. and Mrs. Bradshaw, who were seriously making their preparations for journeying northward, held private talk concerning the young lady, and felt they would like to stay a week longer, just to see if their suspicions would be confirmed. Mrs. Denyer found it difficult to assume the becoming air when she put civil questions to Mrs. Lessingham, for she was now assured that to Miss Doran was attributable the alarming state of things between Clifford and Madeline; Marsh would never have been so intractable but for this new element in the situation. Madeline herself on the other hand, was a model of magnanimity; in Clifford's very hearing, she spoke of Cecily with tender concern, and then walked past her recreant admirer with her fair head in a pose of conscious grace. Even Mr. Musselwhite, at the close of the second day, grew aware that the table lacked one of its ornaments. It was his habit now--a new habit came as a blessing of Providence to Mr. Musselwhite--on passing into the drawing-room after dinner, to glance towards a certain corner, and, after slow, undecided "tackings," to settle in that direction. There sat Barbara Denyer. Her study at present was one of the less-known works of Silvio Pellico, and as Mr. Musselwhite approached, she looked up with an air of absorption. He was wont to begin conversation with the remark, flatteringly toned, "Reading Italian as usual, Miss Denyer?" but this evening a new subject had been suggested to him. "I hope Miss Doran is not seriously unwell, Miss Denyer?" "Oh, I think not." Mr. Musselwhite reflected, stroking his whiskers in a gentlemanly way. "One misses her," was his next remark. "Yes, so much. She is so charming--don't you think, Mr. Musselwhite?"